Chilling payback over abuse scandal

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Just moments to live ... Nicholas Berg and his executioners. Photo: Reuters

The beheading of an American in Iraq in retaliation for the abuse of prisoners has rocked the Bush Administration as it emerged that the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, had approved harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay.

The horrific murder of civilian contractor Nicholas Berg by the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - videotaped and shown on a web site - confirmed the worst fears of those who had forecast violent paybacks over the photographs of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib jail.

It will also almost certainly delay plans to release any more photographs of the ill-treatment amid anxiety by senators and the Pentagon that they would further inflame the Arab world.

The killing has prompted some senators investigating the prison scandal at Abu Ghraib to close ranks around President Bush and reaffirm their strong support for the war in Iraq.

A spokesman for Mr Bush said that those responsible for murdering Mr Berg would be brought to justice. "It shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom," he said. "They have no regard for the lives of innocent men, women and children."

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The execution is played out in agonising detail as Mr Berg is shown on the poor quality tape sitting on the floor with five masked men behind him, one of them holding a knife. After one of the men reads a statement, they push him down, cut off his head and hold it aloft.

One of the militants says: "The dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls." The videotape is being run on the Muntada al-Ansar Islamist website, which is associated with al-Qaeda.

The terrorists claim on the tape that they offered Mr Berg to coalition forces in exchange for prisoners at Abu Ghraib, but had been turned down. The Pentagon has not commented on that claim.

At the same time, evidence before the US Senate Armed Services Committee revealed Mr Rumsfeld's role in approving tough interrogation methods at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, although his senior intelligence aide insisted they had been carried out with "a deep regard for the wellbeing of those being held".

The Pentagon's chief civilian intelligence officer, Stephen Cambone, told the hearings into the prisoner abuse scandal there was a list of techniques that Mr Rumsfeld insisted needed his approval before they were used.

The techniques, "which are within the approved rules but are harsh, he [Rumsfeld] has withheld to his approval first".

The revelation came as the US military announced an investigation into a complaint of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan.

There are now also doubts about when Mr Bush knew of initial complaints about the mistreatment of prisoners after the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said he had kept the President "fully informed in general terms" for at least 12 months.

A Powell aide said Mr Bush had been told by Mr Powell and other senior officials of complaints by the Red Cross and human rights groups about detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba "at various times throughout this period - the last year or more".

Mr Rumsfeld has told Congress that he informed Mr Bush in late January or early February about the investigation by Major-General Antonio Taguba into abuses at Abu Ghraib. Mr Bush has said he did not see the damning photographs until they appeared on television.

As senators investigating the prisoner abuses rallied around the President, the Democrat Joe Lieberman said the murder of Mr Berg "brings us to clarity that what happened in that prison was wrong, that we will search it out and eliminate it, and that it does not diminish the support for our cause in Iraq."

General Tabuga told the Senate committee there were no "written orders" or policy telling military police to carry out the abuse. But he believed the MPs may have been "influenced" by military intelligence officers.